Mappa Mundi

Very interesting but the very last page was a total turnoff. My friend who borrowed it from me loved it until I pointed out that she hadn't read the last page, and then she changed her mind!

strangehorizons/reviews/2006/04/mappa_muntml[return][return]Mappa Mundi was published in 2001, a year in which many things changed in international politics. It is a tensely paced and densely written novel, techno-thriller in substance but not at all in style, set a very few years from now indeed, reality has caught up with Robson's setting rather more quickly than she perhaps anticipated. It is also a good read, which deserved its Clarke Award shortlisting.[return][return]The book centres on th [...]

Justina Robson's hard-science, philosophical novel "Mappa Mundi" -- shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award -- is occasionally well-written, occasionally clunky, and it's not as persistently thrilling of a thriller as I'd hoped. It does offer a few morsels of moral, philosophical, and scientific "food for thought" about the nature of (quantum) consciousness, the universe and the self, the soul and the psyche, and individualism and intolerant ideology/the nation-state. Although I can't blame R [...]

Full review can be found on my blog: killie-booktalk/The first thing I noticed when reading the book was that Justina Robson must have put a lot of research into the novel as I could imagine that some of the technologies detailed may really just be around the corner. However, I found that at times it did get quite deep into some of the technicalities and science involved and this felt a little bit to heavy at times. I also found that none of the characters within the novel really appealed to me. [...]

Grittier, like film noir science fiction: this book more than "Silver Screen" is likely to be the one an enterprising producer ambitiously undertakes to put on the screen. Would fit perfectly in the dark comic book cinematography realm of "The Spirit" and "Sin City." Robson's characters are complex, some grimly twisted, others swept into the night vision by circumstantial winds. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" Robson's writing has teeth and she's not afraid to use them.

In the near future scientists have successfully mapped the human brain – the Mappa Mundi of the title – using nanotechnology and, using the same technology the nanytes, can be used to read and modify a person’s mind. Not in any detail; thoughts can’t be directly read but meme patterns can and they can be modified as well, allowing the possibility of fixing many mental problems or creating them, removing phobias or introducing them, making people compliant or making them aggressive. As wi [...]

Originally published on my blog here in December 2006.After an odd, disjointed start before the plot proper starts - fifty pages describing formative events in the lives of those to become major characters - Mappa Mundi settles down into familiar near future techno-thriller territory, rather like (say) Neal Stephenson's Zodiac. The NervePath projec is a psychological equivalent to the Human Genome Project: mapping out how the mind and brain structure relate to one another. Natalie Armstrong is i [...]

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(review originally posted on my livejournal account: intoyourlungsvejournal)I have never heard of this book before. I've heard of Justina Robson before, but I've never read her or really had any inclination to (not that I think she's a bad author, but the one book I heard about by her, Natural History, looked a little too heavy of a sci-fi for me at the time, so I didn't pay it much mind.) I was more than happy to read it for this month's pick though, and while this is a fairly heavy book (both [...]

I bought this when it was published 16 years ago, but I seem to have missed reading it and it’s only now I’ve finally got around to it. The novel opens with six prologues, each of which is based around one of the main narrative’s major characters. I’ve never been a big fan of prologues, but I like books that play around with narrative structure… And six introductory prologues strikes me as an interesting structural choice, even if their content doesn’t add all that much to the plot. [...]

‘As medical nanotechnology completes a map of the human brain, radical psychologist Natalie Armstrong sees her cutting-edge research suddenly leap out from the sidelines and into the heart of a black project intended to create comprehensive mind-control…FBI science specialist Jude Westhorpe is on the trail of an elusive genius who’s involved in everything from gene sequencing to biological warfare. But Jude’s investigation has started to dig too deeply into matters affecting national sec [...]

Mappa Mundi is a cleverly written and engrossing sci-fi thriller, with interesting characters who are central to the plot. The story embraces scientific questions about the nature of consciousness (ghost in the machine?) and problems of motivation toward moral action when it conflicts with loyalty and self-interest. The central theme is a struggle between competing individual, political and institutional interests in controlling an emerging biotechnology of mind alteration. The author, Justina R [...]

It was OK. Not great. Not terrible. It failed to make much of an impression on me really. I will not be in a hurry to re-read this again in the future - and probably wont.On the other hand, before I completely damn this book into total mediocrity, there were a few things I liked about it. There are a few different characters and the story flips around between them, which makes the story that much more enjoyable to read and definitely enhances the plot. The plot itself has a certain thriller feel [...]

Really enjoyed the story as a whole. It opens with a series of vignettes, "Legends," mostly set in the childhood of various characters. One of the games I played as I read was figuring out which character had had a legend (this shouldn't have been very hard, given they are all named but I have a poor memory and I read too fast, so you know. It worked for me). This was a really cool technique. However, the characters are not a strong point - more to the point, I think the female characters are no [...]

Mappa Mundi By Justina Robson is a science fiction novel about a woman named Natalie, along with her company trying to unlock and utilize all the power of the human brain. Along the way a lot of strange occurrences start to happen especially after she gets information from an American FBI agent that someone plans to use her selfware program as a weapon.This book is extremely well put together, all of the characters and the story line work together really well. The insight on all of the individua [...]

Overall, this book left me very satisfied, and it’s something I can easily recommend to anyone reading or writing SF. This does just about everything well, and since Robson’s a stylist, the prose is almost always a joy to read. I will warn that she has a wonderful handle on metaphor, but because this is speculative fiction, there are times, especially at the beginning, where one isn’t sure if what’s happening is literal or not. This is definitely not a deal breaker, and this isn’t a pr [...]

After reading Natural History, by Justina Robson, an excellent book, I was very pumped about reading this book by her, Mappa Mundi. But, frankly, I didn't even finish it. Firstly, in her attempts to create a strong viable and believable universe she got mired down in the technicalities that just didn't move the story along. Second, and more importantly, I just didn't care about the characters like I did about the non-human, or near-human Forged characters in Natural History. It just seemed like [...]

Excellent plot that was fast-paced and kept you guessing. I still don't think I understood the ending as I finished it just before bed last night. I enjoyed the well-rounded characters too. Great blend of hard" science fiction with moral and metaphysical elements thrown in. (The metaphysics freaked me out at times but it was integral to the plot and really got you thinking about the human implications of the technology.) But also well paced so you're not drowning in either spiritual questions or [...]

An interesting story with well drawn characters and written with wit and verve about a British, female, scientist and some awfully nasty Americans. That ticks a good number of my preferred boxes. The 'Mappa' of the title refers to mapping the mind, and the story deals with mass mind control. I give this spoiler, as it would have been helpful to me to know that as I ploughed through the first 50 or so pages. At 628 pages this has longeurs at both the beginning and the end.

Have had this kicking around for years, and have finally got around to reading it, and wish I had earlier.Readly good near future sci fi, looking at a form of mind control, and the battle between the various agencies to control this technology. Has a number of main characters, and various threads that come together in a reasonable dramatic ending, and a good complex plot.

Very different to my first introduction to Justina Robson via the Quantum Gravity series. Hard SF and not a demon boyfriend in sight. Mostly. The seeds were there. I liked it quite a bit. Great characters, totally believeable premise. Lots of women characters being awesome and not so awesome, but definitely themselves either way.

I like this author. Mappa Mundi is a hard science, science fiction book that builds on current developments in biomedical science. It adds a strong plot and believable characters to create an engaging tale of mystery and intrigue.She also writes in fantasy/adventure and that's worth reading, too.

The title does not translate into "map of the world." The Latin for that would be "carta mundi." Instead a mappa is a cloth. So it is better thought of as "The fabric of the world." It is about personality, experience, a little quantum physics, and the nature of the mind. I liked it a lot.Why are all these British books about so much bigger questions?

I really enjoyed Justina Robson's "Down to the Bone / Keeping It Real / etc" series and so I thought I'd give some of her earlier work a try. Mappa Mundi gets off to a slow start and it took me a while to really start enjoying it. But about half way through something clicked and it suddenly became hard to put down. The end is excellent.

One of the better fictional expositions of "consciousness as software". Written in 2002, the book draws upon the labels and marketing used at that time. Quaint, since consciousness proves as slippery as ever memeplex yet!

definitely puts the science in sci-fi. a heady read that inspires the reader to think about what makes us us, and whether we'd be willing to change it. a scientific thriller/mystery with well-developed characters and lots of twists and turns.

I just couldn't get into it.

This was a long tedious read and I couldn't finish the book. The concept was good, but it might have been better as a novella.

nethspace/2007/07

I have not finished this book, and probably never will [and I hate not finsihing a book. I do]. I just felt I was too far into it for it still not to be coming together, plot-wise.